LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

<2lFT    OF 


Ctes 


0 


THE  PROBLEM 


OF 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 


IN  THK 

UNITED    STATES. 

AN  ADDRESS  GIVEN  BEEORE  THE  HISTORICAL  AND  POLITICAL 

SCIENCE  ASSOCIATION  OE  CORNELL  UNIVERSITY, 

MARCH  16,  1887, 


BY 


THE  HON.  SETH  LOW. 


PUBLISHED   EOR  THE  UNIVERSITY 
BY 

ANDRUS  &  CHURCH, 
ITHACA,  N.  Y. 


THE   PROBLEM 


OF 


MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT 


IN  THE 

UNITED   STATES. 

AN  ADDRESS  GIVEN  BEFORE  THE  HISTORICAL  AND  POLITICAL 

SCIENCE  ASSOCIATION  OF  CORNELL  UNIVERSITY, 

MARCH  16,  1887, 


BY 


THE  HON.  SETH  LOW. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


PUBLISHED   FOR  THE  UNIVERSITY 
BY 

ANDRUS  &  CHURCH, 
ITHACA,  N.  Y. 


THE  PROBLEM  OE  MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT  IN 
THE  UNITED  STATES. 


Municipal  Government,  from  its  nature,  is  a  problem  every- 
where. All  the  tendencies  of  the  times  are  sending  the 
population  of  the  fields  into  the  cities,  not  alone  in  this 
country,  but  in  all  civilized  lands.  Everywhere  this  aggre- 
gation of  population  besets  the  authorities  of  cities  with 
problems  of  one  kind  or  another.  The  question  of  an  economi- 
cal and  healthful  disposition  of  garbage,  which  solves  itself 
so  readily  in  the  country,  or  in  small  villages,  in  the  great 
city  becomes  a  problem  difficult  in  proportion  to  the  size  of 
the  city.  The  difficulties  of  it  continue  to  increase  with  the 
city's  growth  ;  and  what  is  true  of  that  is  true  of  the  simplest 
matters  of  daily  life.  To  procure  water  for  a  household  is  an 
easy  thing,  but  to  supply  a  large  city  with  water,  always  is 
a  most  costly  thing,  and  oftentimes  is  attended  with  the 
greatest  difficulty.  The  questions  that  arise  in  connection 
with  it  are  questions  that  never  would  be  thought  of  until  the 
multiplication  table  brings  them  into  prominent  view.  Not 
long  ago  the  Governor  of  one  of  our  States  told  me  of  a  novel 
point  that  had  been  raised  against  a  city's  water  supply. 
The  outlying  towns,  whose  factories  depended  upon  water 
power,  while  willing  to  admit  that  the  city  was  entitled  to 
water  for  drinking  purposes,  questioned  the  right  to  draw 
water  from  its  natural  channels  for  manufacturing  purposes 
within  the  city.  The  problem  of  supplying  a  city  with  water 
is  great  enough,  but  the  problem  of  meeting  a  city's  waste  of 
water,  except  by  meters,  never  has  been  solved.  Such  ques- 
tions as  these,  while  legitimately  a  part  of  the  problem  of  city 
government,  are  in  no  way  peculiar  to  Municipal  Government 
in  the  United  States.  The  problem  which  we  are  asked  to 


2077511 


consider  to-night  is  distinctively  a  political  one.  We  are 
asked  to  consider  the  peculiar  difficulties  attaching  to  the 
effort  to  secure  good  city  government  under  popular  institu- 
tions. In  a  general  way,  we  are  apt  to  believe  that  if  these 
institutions  have  broken  down  anywhere,  they  have  broken 
down  in  cities.  For  myself,  I  am  not  willing  to  admit  that 
they  have  broken  down  completely  even  there  ;  but  it  cer- 
tainly is  true  that  the  failures  in  city  government  in  the 
United  States  have  been  grave  enough  to  justify  a  most  care- 
ful search  for  the  cause  of  these  failures  and  for  the  remedy. 
Before  committing  ourselves  to  this  enquiry  it  will  be  well,  if 
possible,  to  obtain  a  just  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  failure 
is  fairly  chargeable  to  our  institutions. 

It  is  not  just  to  compare  any  of  our  cities,  even  the  greatest 
of  them,  with  the  great  cities  of  Europe.  London,  Paris  and 
Berlin,  for  example,  with  which  New  York  most  often  is 
compared,  are  the  seats  of  National  Government.  They  were 
cities  when  New  York  was  an  island  inhabited  only  by 
savages.  Many  of  their  most  splendid  monuments  and  most 
useful  works  have  been  executed,  in  whole  or  in  part,  by  the 
general  government  of  the  nation  of  which  each  is  the  capital. 
Berlin  since  1870,  it  is  true,  has  grown  almost  as  rapidly  as 
New  York,  but  its  growth  has  been  the  incoming  of  a  homo- 
geneous people.  The  city  has  not  been  the  receptacle  of  a 
tide  of  emigration  flowing  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  bring- 
ing into  the  city  a  host  speaking  different  languages,  trained 
in  foreign  ideas,  and  not  a  homogeneous  but  a  most  hetero- 
geneous multitude.  Even  London,  vast  as  it  is  and  cosmo- 
politan as  it  is,  presents  nothing  like  the  confusion  of  tongues 
and  variety  of  peoples  which  are  to  be  heard  and  seen  in  New 
York.  Paris,  even  more  than  London,  is  populated  by  a 
single  people  only.  It  is  true  that  none  of  our  other  cities  are 
perplexed  with  this  especial  problem  to  the  same  extent  as 
New  York,  but  all  of  them  are  compelled  to  face  it  in  a  degree 
sufficiently  great  to  mark  it  as  one  of  the  peculiar  elements 
of  the  problem  of  City  Government  in  this  country.  It  is  not 
unfair  to  claim  that  it  is  a  difficulty  attaching  to  city  govern- 


ment  here,  which  attaches  to  it  in  no  city  of  Kurope.  This 
same  influx  of  population  has  given  rise  to  another  peculiar 
difficulty  in  Municipal  Government  here.  Cities,  instead  of 
being  the  growth  of  centuries,  as  they  have  been  in  Kurope, 
with  us  are  the  growth  of  of  decades.  The  City  of  Brooklyn 
and  the  City  of  Chicago  have  just  turned  their  fifty  years  of 
municipal  life.  In  these  fifty  years  each  has  grown  from  a 
small  settlement  to  be  a  city  of  700,000  people  or  more.  No 
city  in  Great  Britain,  except  its  vast  metropolis,  notwithstand- 
ing the  centuries  which  have  entered  into  their  lives,  is  so 
large  as  either  Brooklyn  or  Chicago.  A  growth  so  rapid  as 
this  means  that  everything  which  makes  the  city  has  to  be 
created,  as  it  were,  out  of  nothing. 

I  referred  a  moment  ago,  to  the  wonderful  growth  of  Berlin 
since  1870.  It  is,  I  think,  the  only  city  in  Europe  presenting 
anything  like  a  parallel  growth  to  that  of  our  American 
cities.  But  Berlin  in  1870  had  been  a  city  for  hundreds  of 
years.  The  Great  Elector,  and  Frederick  the  Great,  and  his 
successors,  had  made  it  the  pride  of  their  reigns  to  beautify 
and  ennoble  Berlin.  As  a  result,  there  was  a  nucleus  in  the 
city  of  great  wealth,  giving  it  at  once  the  credit  and  the 
ability  necessary  to  provide  for  the  needs  forced  upon  it  by 
this  unusual  growth.  But  Brooklyn  and  Chicago  had  no 
such  nucleus  of  wealth  upon  which  to  build  their  fortunes. 
They  sprang,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  very  soil ;  and  the  same 
few  years  which  have  seen  so  large  a  population  gather  under 
one  City  Government,  have  seen  each  city  supply  itself  with 
all  the  comforts  and  conveniences  of  life  in  these  modern 
times.  When  one  goes  to  Europe,  the  first  matter  to  attract 
one's  attention  and  to  make  him  mourn  the  condition  of 
things  at  home,  are  the  streets.  The  uniformly  good  pave- 
ments, and  the  uniformly  clean  streets  abroad,  are  the  admi- 
ration and  the  envy  of  the  dwellers  in  nearly  all  American 
cities.  It  often  is  charged  against  our  cities  that  they  fail 
conspicuously  in  these  palpable  respects.  But  it  is  forgotten 
that  the  era  of  good  pavements  and  consequently  of  clean 
.streets,  in  most  of  the  European  cities  is  less  than  thirty 


—  6  — 

years  old.  In  Berlin,  I  believe,  it  dates  from  a  period  more 
recent  than  1870.  I  would  not  exculpate  our  city  officials 
from  any  fault  justly  chargeable  to  them  in  regard  to  the 
paving  and  cleaning  of  our  streets  ;  but  in  forming  an  esti- 
mate of  what  the  true  measure  is  of  the  break  down  in  our 
political  institutions  in  the  government  of  cities,  it  is  fair  to 
bear  in  mind  that  if  we  do  not  yet  equal  European  cities  in 
these  most  desirable  respects,  the  reason  is  to  be  found,  in 
part,  in  the  heavy  obligations  for  permanent  plant,  forced 
upon  our  cities  by  their  rapid  growth.  Time  is  an  element 
in  making  a  city  as  well  as  in  the  accomplishment  of  any 
other  great  purpose,  and  we  must  not  charge  to  our  institu- 
tions, failures  that  really  spring  from  the  shortness  of  time  in 
which  they  have  been  at  work.  Indeed,  I  think  it  fairly  may 
be  claimed  for  our  institutions,  as  exemplified  in  City  Govern- 
ments in  the  United  States,  that  they  have  shown  themselves 
equal  in  many  ways  to  grapple  with  very  great  and  very 
difficult  problems.  It  is  curious,  I  think,  to  travel  along  the 
border  between  the  United  States  and  Canada,  and  to  note 
how,  wherever  one  finds  a  house  on  the  Canadian  side,  one 
finds  a  hamlet  on  this  ;  where  Canada  boasts  a  village,  on 
our  side,  one  finds  a  town  ;  where  Canada  grows  into  a  town, 
upon  the  American  side  is  a  city.  Partly  no  doubt,  mostly 
perhaps,  this  is  simply  the  vigorous  life  of  the  nation  express- 
ing itself,  even  at  its  boundaries.  But  I  fancy  also,  this 
claim  can  be  made,  that  our  popular  institutions  lend  them- 
selves readily  to  the  growth  of  cities,  because  the  ability  to 
provide  the  necessary  comforts  and  conveniences  of  city  life 
is  within  easy  reach  of  the  population.  As  a  rule,  it  is  not 
necessary,  for  instance,  to  convince  a  distant  authority  of  the 
need  for  a  sewer  before  it  can  be  constructed  ;  nor,  can  the 
objection  of  a  few,  who  possibly  hold  the  purse-strings,  long 
decline  to  yield  to  the  demands  of  the  many. 

In  other  words,  our  institutions,  even  in  cities,  lend  them- 
selves with  wonderfully  little  friction  to  growth  and  develop- 
ment, and  to  the  assimilation  of  new  and  strange  populations. 
Our  cities,  as  a  whole,  have  a  more  abundant  supply  of  wa- 


ter  than  European  cities,  and  they  are  much  more  enterpris- 
ing in  furnishing  themselves  with  what  abroad,  might  be 
called  the  luxuries  of  city  life,  but  which  here  are  so  common 
as  almost  to  be  regarded  as  necessities.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  every  convenience  involving  the  use  of  electricity. 
There  are  more  telephone  wires,  for  example,  in  New  York 
and  Brooklyn  than  in  the  whole  United  Kingdom.  The 
problem  of  placing  these  wires  under  ground,  therefore,  to 
take  another  illustration  of  the  difficulties  of  city  government, 
is  vastly  greater  than  in  any  city  abroad,  because  the  multi- 
plication of  wires  is  so  constant  and  at  so  rapid  a  rate, 
that  as  fast  as  some  are  placed  beneath  the  surface,  those 
which  have  been  strung  during  the  process  seem  as  numer- 
ous as  before  the  underground  movement  began.  '  I  speak  of 
these  things  because  it  is  important  for  us  to  define  accurately 
wherein  our  failure  does  lie,  in  order  that  we  may  consider 
wisely  what  may  be  the  remedy. 

It  is  manifest  that  we  must  not  assume  that  everything 
of  which  we  justly  complain  in  our  cities  is  due  to  the  failure 
of  American  institutions,  expressing  themselves  in  city  life. 
While  I  have  been  thus  careful  to  concede  everything  that 
may  be  urged  in  mitigation  of  conclusions  unfavorable  to  our 
city  governments,  the  fault  with  which  they  are  justly 
chargeable  is  grave  enough. 

The  struggle  in  city  government  in  the  United  States,  is 
not  so  much  to  secure  the  doing  of  a  necessary  thing,  as  it  is 
to  procure  the  doing  of  it  economically,  efficiently  and  hon- 
estly. It  may  be  a  hard  word,  but  the  struggle  in  city  gov- 
ernment at  present,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  every  city,  is  to  se- 
cure simple  honesty  on  the  part  of  its  officials,  as  a  whole,  as 
towards  the  people.  I  do  not  mean  that  all  city  officials  are 
personally  dishonest,  nor  even  that  the  majority  of  them  are. 
It  , would  be  impossible  to  deny,  in  the  presence  of  the  re- 
cent developments  in  New  York  City,  tiiat  a  percentage  of 
dishonest  men  do  obtain  positions  of  trust  and  influence  in 
city  governments.  How  large  that  percentage  may  be,  it  is 
idle  to  speculate.  The  difficulty  is  much  more  deeply  rooted 


than  that.  The  whole  city  government  is  chosen  under  con- 
ditions that  make  the  highest  conception  of  service  to  the 
people,  almost  an  impossibility.  First  of  all,  nominations 
are  made  upon  party  lines,  which  lines  are  drawn  along 
questions  in  which  municipal  issues  have  no  part.  As  a  con- 
sequence of  this,  officials,  when  they  are  elected,  find  them- 
selves presented  with  the  choice  of  two  masters,  their  party 
or  their  city.  If  the  party  lines  had  been  drawn  upon  city 
issues,  the  interests  of  the  two  might  fairly  be  supposed  to  be 
identical.  This  not  having  been  the  case  however,  the  offi- 
cial, almost  invariably,  places  the  interest  of  his  party  first, 
and  the  interest  of  the  city  second.  Citizens  may  complain 
of  this,  but,  so  long  as  they  choose  their  officials  by  the  ordinary 
party  machinery,  this  tendency  will  be  too  strong  wholly  to 
overcome.  Nor  is  it  a  very  illogical  thing  on  the  part  of  the 
officials.  From  five  to  ten  per  cent,  more  citizens  vote  for 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  at  every  election,  than 
vote  at  a  corresponding  time  for  city  officials.  Both  by  the 
number  of  votes  cast,  therefore,  and  by  the  method  pur- 
sued in  the  actual  nomination  and  election  of  city  offi- 
cials, those  officials,  when  chosen,  find  themselves  faced  with 
the  fact  that  the  great  body  of  their  constituents,  take  more 
interest  in  their  party  than  in  the  well  being  of  their  city. 
This  would  be  discouraging  enough  to  good  service,  under 
the  most  favorable  conditions,  but,  when  city  officials,  in  ad- 
dition to  this,  find  themselves  exposed  to  all  the  pressure 
which  the  party  machinery  can  bring  upon  them  in  their 
offices,  a  situation  exists,  from  which  it  is  not  reasonable  to 
expect  that  the  city  will  be  the  first  care,  even  in  the  minds 
of  its  own  officers.  This  is  the  underlying  difficulty  which 
makes  it  so  hard  to  imbue  our  city  officials,  practically,  with 
the  idea  that  ' '  public  office  is  a  public  trust. ' '  The  com- 
munity from  which  they  take  their  powers,  does  not  act  as 
though  the  community  itself  believed  it.  This  being  a  fun- 
damental trouble,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  difficult  it  will  be  to 
devise  any  adequate  remedy. 

The  first  and  most  natural  suggestion  is  to  separate  mu- 


9 

nicipal  elections  from  all  other  elections .  and  to  hold  them 
at  different  times.  In  Boston,  for  example,  the  charter 
election  follows  the  November  election,  in  December.  In 
Philadelphia,  on  the  other  hand,  the  charter  election  is 
held  in  the  Spring.  Theoretically,  this  is  an  improvement ; 
but  practically,  it  generally  has  transpired  that  fewer  citizens 
cast  their  votes,  at  such  times,  than  would  vote  upon  election 
day.  Furthermore,  in  Boston,  the  antagonisms  of  the  No- 
vember election  are  very  apt  to  repeat  themselves  in  Decem- 
ber, because  the  dates  are  so  close  together  ;  while  in  Phila- 
delphia, an  approaching  election  in  the  Fall,  gives  color  to 
the  Spring  election,  because  the  latter  is  considered  a  straw 
to  show  which  way  the  tide  is  running.  This,  of  course, 
illustrates  again,  the  disadvantage  to  the  city,  of  choosing 
its  officials  along  party  lines,  bearing  altogether  upon  outside 
questions.  I  believe,  however,  that  the  balance  of  argument 
is  in  favor  of  separate  municipal  elections.  If  it  could  be 
made  practicable,  by  a  constitutional  amendment,  I  should 
prefer  to  see  the  terms  of  State  officers  so  adjusted  that  city 
elections  throughout  our  State  might  be  held  at  the  usual 
November  election,  but  in  alternate  years  as  regards  elections 
for  State  and  National  officers.  Even  so,  I  should  not  ex- 
pect to  see  them  escape  altogether  the  influence  of  the  stronger 
tide  of  party  politics,  but  I  think  that  influence  would  be  re- 
duced to  its  minimum  of  strength,  as  compared  with  the 
strength  of  the  fight  that  might  be  made,  under  such  circum- 
stances, upon  city  issues.  In  any  case  I  prefer  a  separate 
city  election,  because  it  tends  to  emphasize  to  the  minds  of 
the  citizens,  their  separate  interest  in  good  city  government, 
as  distinguished  from  their  concern  in  good  State  and  Na- 
tional government.  I  have  great  faith  in  the  ability  to  edu- 
cate American  communities  to  the  acceptance  of  ideas  which 
in  themselves  are  sound,  provided  the  opportunity  is  given 
to  impress  the  lesson  distinctly  and  free  from  misleading 
complications.  For  this  reason,  it  would  be,  in  my  mind,  a 
substantial  advantage  to  have  separate  city  elections. 
Let  us  consider  now,  the  Legislative  Body  of  Cities.  Boards 


—  10  — 

of  Aldermen  in  some  cities,  have  so  far  disappointed 
public  trust,  as  to  lead  to  various  methods  of  choosing  such 
a  Board,  in  the  hope  of  finding  some  method  which  would 
give  a  satisfactory  result.  But  such  cities,  unfortunately, 
seem  to  return  Boards,  under  every  system,  which  lead  to 
the  condemnation  of  all  systems  alike.  In  New  York  City, 
which  is  the  most  extreme  case  of  all,  practically  every  power, 
except  the  right  to  grant  franchises,  has  been  taken  from  the 
Board  of  Aldermen,  and  lodged  in  a  Board  of  Apportion- 
ment, consisting  of  the  Mayor,  the  Comptroller,  the  President 
of  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  and  the  Tax  Commissioner.  The 
Board  of  Apportionment,  speaking  generally,  exercises  all 
the  financial  oversight  and  control  of  taxes  and  their  appli- 
cation, which,  in  other  places,  would  have  been  exercised  by 
the  Aldermen.  New  York,  of  course,  has  peculiar  difficul- 
ties to  contend  with.  Her  voting  population  is  continually 
swollen  by  new  recruits  from  abroad,  under  conditions  the 
least  favorable  that  can  be  imagined  for  enabling  them  to 
appreciate  the  duties  and  responsibilities  attaching  to  the  use 
of  their  ballots.  The  shape  of  the  city  is  such  as  to  concen- 
trate similar  elements  of  the  population  in  the  same  locali- 
ties ;  to  produce  many  districts  with  a  large  population 
having  very  small  opportunities  to  acquaint  themselves  with 
the  proper  use  and  care  of  large  sums  of  money  ;  and  a 
few  districts,  where  the  population  so  largely  abounds  in 
wealth,  as  greatly  to  neglect  the  proper  discharge  of  their 
duties  as  citizens  of  no  mean  city.  The  same  elements, 
enter  into  the  problem,  unquestionably,  in  all  our  large  cities, 
but  they  enter  into  it  to  a  greater  extent  in  New  York  than 
anywhere  else.  Boards  of  Aldermen,  it  is  found,  and  not  in 
New  York  only,  largely  fail  as  prudent  guardians  of  the 
public  interests  in  financial  matters,  because  they  are  com- 
posed of  men  who  have  no  experience  fitting  them  for  the 
discharge  of  such  duties.  It  was  suggested  by  the  City  Com- 
mission appointed  by  Governor  Tilden,  that  the  only  effectual 
remedy  for  this  condition  of  things,  was  the  election  of  a 
second  Board,  chosen  by  tax-payers  only,  who  should 


—  II  — 

possess  the  veto  power  on  all  questions  of  a  financial  nature. 
I  confess  that  I  should  feel  greatly  discouraged  if  the  only 
remedy  for  the  trouble  lies  in  this  direction,  because,  I  see 
no  reason  whatever  to  believe  that  this  particular  remedy  is 
practicable.  Our  American  institutions  make  the  man  the 
unit  and  not  the  dollar,  and  I  do  not  expect  to  see  great 
cities,  containing  immense  masses  of  men,  made  exceptions 
to  this  rule.  Somewhat  that  is  helpful  in  this  particular,  we 
have  gained  already  from  experience,  by  limiting  the  amount 
of  debt  which  a  city  is  permitted  to  create.  In  several  of 
our  States,  cities  are  limited  by  the  constitution,  to  a  debt 
ranging  from  three  per  cent,  to  ten  per  cent,  of  their  assessed 
valuation  for  the  preceding  year.  Whether  the  limit  be  high 
or  low,  it  is  a  great  point  to  have  that  limit  definitely  fixed. 
In  my  observation,  the  amount  of  pecuniary  wrong  which 
cities  suffer  through  the  Tax  Levy,  is  comparatively  insig- 
nificant. The  tax  bill  the  citizens  see  every  year,  and  the 
officials  who  are  responsible  for  the  items  which  make  up 
the  budget,  are  most  unwilling  to  permit  any  items  to  enter, 
which  swell  it  to  an  unreasonable  amount.  I  think  I  am 
not  mistaken  in  saying,  that  whatever  plundering  may  have 
been  done,  has  been  effected  chiefly  through  concealing  the 
consequences  of  extravagance  and  fraud  by  postponing  the 
resulting  burden  in  the  form  of  debt.  Therefore,  this  simple 
device  of  limiting  the  credit  of  a  city,  puts  a  stop  at  once  to 
the  most  serious  inroads  upon  its  tax  payers. 

In  New  York  City,  as  I  have  said,  all  powers  practically 
have  been  taken  from  the  Board  of  Aldermen  except  their 
right  to  grant  franchises.  It  would  not  be  surprising  if  this 
right  also  should  be  withdrawn  within  a  few  years.  In  New 
York,  already,  franchises  must  be  sold  at  auction.  One  way 
to  secure  payment  to  the  city  for  the  value  of  franchises, 
which  seems  to  me  to  promise  quite  as  well  as  the  sale  pf 
franchises  at  auction,  would  be  to  refer  each  proposed  fran- 
chise to  the  Board  of  Assessors  to  estimate  its  value,  and  to 
forbid  the  granting  of  it  below  their  estimate.  In  view  of  the 
fact  that  competition  for  franchises  is  necessarily  limited,  this 


—  12 


seems  to  me  a  practicable  way  at  least  of  determining  upon 
an  upset  price. 

Practically,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  the  Board  of  Alder- 
men is  useful  in  a  large  city,  under  our  modern  conditions,  in 
only  one  respect.  Matters  brought  before  them  and  referred  to  a 
committee  can  be  considered  in  public  before  action  is  had 
upon  them.  Very  often,  it  is  true,  that  just  in  those  cases 
where  deliberation  and  publicity  are  most  desirable,  this 
course  is  the  least  followed.  If  that  comes  to  be  the  rule,  in 
any  city,  rather  than  the  exception,  I  would  say,  without  hesita- 
tion, that  the  New  York  plan  of  referring  the  control  of  financial 
expenditure,  to  a  Board  made  up  of  the  chief  officials  of  the  city, 
would  be  the  better  plan.  In  that  case  I  should  go  the  whole 
length  of  the  idea  and  give  to  that  Board  all  necessary 
powers  still  left  with  the  Common  Council  with  reference  to 
franchises,  because,  as  it  stands  otherwise,  the  Common 
Council  *  does  not  retain  power  enough  to  attract  to 
itself,  even  by  accident,  effective  elements  of  strength. 
The  most  dangerous  of  all  public  bodies  are  those  which 
possess  considerable  power  to  do  harm  and  little  capacity  to 
do  good.  Of  course,  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  chief 
officials  of  the  city  are  themselves  as  untrustworthy  as  any 
Board  of  Aldermen  could  be  ;  but,  unless  my  experience  has 
been  exceptional,  I  should  say  that  the  chief  officials  in  all 
large  cities  would  average  better  than  their  aldermen.  When 
I  say  better,  I  mean  better  in  intelligence  and  in  the  elements 
of  character  which  go  to  make  up  efficient  and  honest  officials. 
The  larger  the  constituency  to  which  the  candidate  is  obliged 
to  appeal,  as  a  rule,  the  larger  man  the  candidate  has  to  be. 
Our  wards  all  the  time  elect  men,  who  would  stand  no  chance 
of  election,  could  they  even  be  nominated,  in  the  city  at 
large.  Especially  is  this  so  if  they  were  to  run,  not  as 
members  of  a  large  Board,  but  on  their  own  merits  as  candi- 
dates for  a  specific  office  known  to  be  of  great  importance  to 
the  city. 

The  Common  Councils  of  Cities  unquestionably  are  the 
greatest  of  the  organic  municipal  problems.  So  far  as  I 


—  13  — 

know,  there  is  only  one  experiment  as  to  the  make  up  of 
Common  Councils  of  large  cities,  which  has  not  been  tried 
and  found  wanting.  I  do  not  know  of  any  city  where  there 
is  a  Common  Council  consisting  of  a  large  number  of  mem- 
bers, whose  duties  are  strictly  confined  to  deliberative  and 
legislative  functions.  There  have  been  large  Common  Coun- 
cils in  some  cities,  consisting  even  of  two  houses,  but  unless 
my  impression  is  incorrect,  they  have  also  possessed  large 
power  of  interference  with  the  Executive.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, I  do  not  know  that  the  results  with  large  Com- 
mon Councils,  have  been  any  more  satisfactory  than  with 
small  ones.  In  one  direction  however,  I  think  experience 
has  led  to  progress  even  in  connection  with  the  Common 
Councils  of  cities.  In  the  early  part  of  our  history,  almost 
every  city  charter,  gave  to  the  Common  Council  great  powers 
of  interference,  to  say  the  least,  with  the  Executive.  In  al- 
most all  our  large  cities,  that  power  has  been  taken  away 
from  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  and  where  it  has  not  been 
taken  away  entirely,  it  has  been  very  greatly  modified. 
Cities  used  to  be  given  charters  framed  as  though  they  were 
little  States,  but  experience  has  shown  conclusively,  that 
they  are  to  a  much  larger  extent,  great  corporations. 
In  consequence,  the  checks  that  have  been  thought  necessary 
where  men's  political  rights  were  at  stake,  have  been  found 
to  be  unnecessary  in  the  administration  of  cities.  Indeed, 
they  have  been  found  to  be  a  source  of  great  inconvenience 
and  damage,  because,  having  no  substantial  foundation  in 
the  genuine  need  of  the  community,  they  have  only  served  to 
enable  the  legislative  body  to  hamper  and  thwart  the  execu- 
tive. I  should  consider  it  as  one  of  the  indisputable  lessons 
of  our  experience  in  connection  with  city  government,  that 
legislative  and  executive  functions,  be  clearly  divided. 

This  brings  us  naturally  to  a  consideration  of  the  experi- 
ence of  cities  on  the  executive  side.  Until  very  recently,  our 
cities  have  endeavored  to  govern  themselves  by  a  system,  which 
never  could  give  good  results  anywhere.  In  almost  every 
city,  the  Mayor  has  been  little  more  than  a  figure  head.  He 


-14- 

has  had,  generally,  the  right  to  nominate  the  heads  of  de- 
partments, but  the  value  of  this  right  has  been  nullified  by 
lodging  with  the  Common  Council  the  power  to  confirm.  In 
all  our  large  cities  the  confirming  power  has  become  the  nom- 
inating power.  It  always  has  been  able  to  produce  a  dead- 
lock, which  after  a  time,  in  most  cases,  has  been  broken  by 
a  deal.  Nothing  more  demoralizing  to  the  public  service  is 
conceivable  than  this  method  of  filling  high  administrative 
offices.  It  is  singularly  at  variance  with  the  good  sense  of 
the  American  people,  that  they  have  so  long  permitted  such 
a  system  to  obtain  in  their  cities,  while  in  the  infinitely  great- 
er concerns  of  the  United  States,  a  much  larger  discretion 
has  been  given  to  the  President.  It  is  true,  that  the  appoint- 
ments made  by  the  President  ultimately  come  for  confirma- 
tion, before  the  Senate,  but  the  President  has  power  to  re- 
move and  fill  vacancies,  such  as  no  mayor  has  enjoyed  until 
within  the  last  few  years. 

In  one  other  respect  also,  of  equal  importance,  the  char- 
ters of  our  cities  have  departed  from  the  wise  rule  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States.  The  fathers  of  the  repub- 
lic knew  better  than  to  lodge  executive  powers  in  a  Board 
consisting  of  several  members.  They  understood  perfectly 
that  one  man  for  executive  work,  was  the  rule  in  all  depart- 
ments of  human  activity,  where  efficiency  was  either  sought 
or  hoped  for.  But  our  cities  when  they  met  with  harm 
through  the  inefficiency  or  misdeeds  of  an  executive  official, 
have  frequently  sought,  or  been  compelled  to  accept,  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  Board  in  the  place  of  the  administration  of 
one  man.  Indeed,  except  in  the  cities  of  Brooklyn  in  our 
own  State,  and  in  Philadelphia,  and  possibly  in  Chicago,  I 
am  not  sure  that  the  care  of  police  affairs  to-day,  is  not  en- 
trusted almost  everywhere  to  more  than  one  man.  One 
might  as  well  expect  an  army  to  be  successful  under  four 
Generals  as  to  expect  efficient  and  economical  administration 
of  a  Police  Department  under  four  Commissioners,  whether 
these  Commissioners  be  non-partisan  or  otherwise.  Boards 
of  officials  have  their  proper  place,  where  duties  are  to  be 


discharged  involving  the  element  of  discretion  and  judgment, 
but  certainly  not  where  the  discretion  and  judgment  is  purely 
that  of  an  executive.  For  example,  it  seems  to  be  eminently 
proper  that  there  should  be  a  Board  of  Assessors  or  a  Board 
of  Education,  because  in  those  cases,  the  element  of  judgment 
is  the  principal  thing  ;  but  I  believe  that  all  our  large  cities, 
ultimately,  as  some  of  them  have  already  done,  will  come  to 
the  system  which  prevails  in  Brooklyn,  of  committing  each 
executive  department  to  the  care  of  one  man.  There  is,  of 
course,  a  great  difference  in  the  executive  power  of  individ- 
uals, and  a  poor  executive  will  seriously  affect  the  efficiency 
of  a  department ;  but  he  must  be  a  singularly  inefficient 
man,  who  will  produce  worse  results  than  the  best  Board 
that  ever  sat.  If  the  members  of  such  Boards  were  to  enter 
upon  their  duties  with  the  most  single-minded  purpose  possi- 
ble, the  nature  of  the  work  entrusted  to  them  must  very 
shortly  produce  one  of  two  results  :  either  the  members  of 
the  Board  will  get  at  logger-heads  with  one  another,  resulting 
in  great  disadvantage  to  the  service  ;  or,  the  members  will 
keep  in  harmony  with  each  other  by  mutual  concessions.  In 
no  case  does  the  best  judgment  of  any  one  member,  nor  the 
prompt  action  of  any  one,  come  with  the  same  direct  efficien- 
cy, as  when  the  full  power  is  lodged  in  single  hands.  When 
to  this  inevitable  tendency,  resulting  from  division  of  execu- 
tive work,  is  added  the  confusion  springing  from  the  lack  of 
high  principle,  which  sometimes  is  witnessed  in  public  life,  it 
becomes  apparent,  I  think,  that  the  effort  to  procure  good 
results  through  the  division  of  executive  powers  must  always 
be  fore-doomed  to  failure.  No  army  could  succeed  under 
such  a  system  ;  no  railroad  could  succeed  ;  no  business  of 
any  kind  could  succeed  under  it ;  and  there  is  nothing  so  sin- 
gular about  the  business  of  a  city,  that  good  results  can  be 
hoped  for  in  a  city  from  methods  which  defy  the  experience 
of  mankind. 

There  is  still  another  particular  in  which  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  might  usefully  serve  as  a  model 
for  our  cities.  All  great  administrative  departments  of 


—  i6  — 

the  government  are  not  only  under  the  control  of  one  man, 
but  this  one  man,  by  custom  amounting  to  law,  must  always 
be  in  sympathy  with  the  President.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
forms  one  of  his  cabinet  ;  and  when,  for  any  reason  he  finds 
himself  out  of  sympathy  with  his  chief,  he  at  once  tenders 
his  resignation.  The  resignation  is  accepted  as  a  matter  of 
course,  under  these  circumstances,  without  its  implying  any- 
thing derogatory  to  either  official.  It  simply  is  a  case  where 
the  two  men  can  not  work  harmoniously  together,  and  the 
common  sense  of  the  nation  has  understood,  that  under  these 
conditions,  it  is  the  right  of  the  President,  as  the  responsible 
head  of  the  country,  to  enjoy  the  aid  of  a  subordinate  in  en- 
tire sympathy  with  his  own  ideas.  In  our  cities,  the  effort 
has  been  made  to  procure  satisfactory  results  by  precisely  the 
opposite  system.  The  heads  of  executive  departments,  some- 
times are  elected  directly  by  the  people,  and,  therefore,  feel 
entirely  independent  of  the  Mayor,  who  in  name,,., at  all 
events,  is  the  chief  executive  of  the  city.  Where  they  are 
not  so  elected  by  the  people,  they  often  have  been  appointed 
for  terms  overlapping  the  terms  of  service  of  the  Mayor  in 
both  directions,  beginning  before  his  term  began  and  outlast- 
ing him  in  his  office.  The  direct  result  of  this  system  is  that 
each  department  considers  itself  an  integral  part  of  the  city 
government,  without  relations  to  the  other  parts  of  the  city 
further  than  it  may  be  pleasant  or  agreeable  for  the  respect- 
ive heads  of  each  to  concede.  An  illustration  will  show  how 
detrimental  to  the  public  service  such  a  situation  may  be. 
The  Police  Department,  in  its  administration,  touches  di- 
rectly, and  every  day,  these  four  departments  of  city  service, 
the  Department  of  City  Works,  or  the  department  by  what- 
ever name  it  may  be  known,  which  has  charge  of  the  paving 
and  cleaning  of  the  streets,  and  all  other  matters  touching 
the  care  of  the  thoroughfares  of  a  city  ;  the  Building  Depart- 
ment ;  the  Fire  Department  ;  and  the  Health  Department. 
In  every  city,  ordinances  affecting  all  four  of  these  depart- 
ments, depend  upon  the  police  in  a  large  measure  for  effective 
enforcement.  I  have  known  it  to  be  the  case  that  the  head 


of  the  Police  Department  and  the  head  of  the  Health  Depart- 
ment have  been  carrying  on  a  prolonged  controversy  in  the 
newspapers,  each  finding  fault  with  the  other.  How  is  it  possi- 
ble to  secure  an  efficient  administration  of  the  health  laws  under 
these  conditions  ?  And  if  the  different  officers,  or  Boards, 
get  out  of  sympathy  with  each  other  to  a  greater  extent, 
owing  no  allegiance  to  the  Mayor  as  the  chief  executive  of 
the  city,  it  is  apparent  that  there  again  a  situation  has  grown 
up  which  can  not,  by  any  possibility,  produce  satisfactory 
results.  But  it  is  only  within  the  last  few  years  that,  in  any 
of  our  American  cities,  the  lesson  has  been  learned  of  the 
necessity  of  having  the  responsibility  of  the  Mayor  extend  to 
each  administrative  department.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  this  responsibility  ought  to  extend  to  the  same  length 
that  it  does  in  the  United  States  Government,  so  that  the 
administration  of  the  city,  for  the  time  being,  should  rest 
absolutely  in  the  power  of  the  Mayor.  I  understand,  of  course, 
that  this  involves  power  to  do  great  harm,  as  well  as  power 
to  do  the  greatest  good,  but  that  is  an  incident  of  power  in  all 
departments  of  life.  The  locomotive  may  do  great  damage 
if  it  is  not  properly  controlled,  but  no  one  would  think  of  de- 
priving the  locomotive  of  its  power,  because,  without  a  com- 
petent or  trustworthy  engineer,  it  might  become  an  instrument 
of  mischief.  Power  always  brings  with  it  responsibility,  and 
great  responsibility  exercised  in  the  face  of  the  community  is 
a  very  sobering  influence.  In  my  opinion ,  no  Mayor  weighted 
with  such  responsibility,  moving,  as  he  is  compelled  to  do,  in 
the  focus  of  public  observation,  will  permit  matters  to  go 
wrong,  as  much  as  they  will  go  wrong  all  the  time  under  better 
men  when  hampered  by  the  system  which  has  prevailed  in  our 
cities  hitherto.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  also,  that  a  system  of 
concentrated  responsibility  accompanied  by  corresponding 
power  and  opportunity  appeals  to  all  that  is  best  in  a  man.  If 
there  is  no  possibility  of  throwing  off  upon  others  blame  for 
mistakes  or  misdeeds,  there  is  equally  no  one  to  claim  the  credit 
of  commendable  achievements.  Consequently,  the  man  occu- 
pying the  Mayor's  chair,  is  appealed  to  by  two  of  the  most 


—  i8  — 

powerful  motives  to  be  found  in  the  human  breast.  On  the  one 
hand,  every  high  aspiration  to  do  well  is  encouraged  by  the  cer- 
tainty of  its  reward  ;  and  every  temptation  to  do  ill  is  discour- 
aged by  the  inevitableness  of  the  blame.  Under  the  system  of 
divided  responsibility  the  typical  situation  is  that  which  was 
illustrated  long  ago  by  the  inimitable  pencil  of  Thomas  Nast, 
when,  in  the  days  of  the  Tweed  regime,  he  pictured  a  ring  of 
of  officials,  each  pointing  to  the  other  as  the  man  who  was  to 
blame. 

I  believe,  therefore,  in  the  government  of  cities,  on  their 
executive  side,  by  a  Mayor  who  is  given  the  power  to  appoint 
and  remove  all  the  executive  heads  of  departments.  I  believe 
the  charter  of  Brooklyn  is  right  also,  in  providing  that  these 
heads  of  departments  shall  be  appointed  by  the  mayor  for  a  term 
contemporaneous  with  his  own,  so  that  each  succeeding  Mayor 
enjoys  the  opportunity  given  the  President  of  the  United 
States  of  making  an  administration,  for  which  he  is  not  only 
willing  to  be  responsible,  but  for  which  he  must  be  responsi- 
ble. These  conditions  are  important  in  my  view,  not  only  for 
the  efficient  administration  of  the  city,  but  also  to  secure  com- 
plete control  over  their  city  government  for  the  people.  How- 
ever possible  it  may  be,  as  a  matter  of  theory,  for  every  citizen 
upon  election  dav  to  cast  a  ballot  with  reference  to  any  num- 
ber of  officials,  based  upon  a  discriminating  knowledge  of  the 
duties  of  each  candidate,  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  not  possible 
for  the  citizen,  whose  time  is  largely  engrossed  in  his  private 
affairs,  to  obtain  the  detailed  knowledge  necessary  for  such 
an  act.  The  best  such  an  one  can  hope  to  do,  is  to  form  his 
general  opinion  of  this  or  that  man,  from  the  newspapers,  or 
from  conversation  with  such  friends  as  he  may  chance  to 
meet.  But  if  it  is  possible  to  say  to  the  voters  of  a  city, 
whichever  of  these  two  men  you  elect  Mayor  will  have  the 
right  and  power  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the  city  in  all  de- 
tails for  the  period  of  his  term,  then  you  have  propounded  a 
proposition  upon  which  the  most  ignorant  citizen  may  hope 
to  form  an  opinion.  It  is  not  often  that  two  men  are  so 
equally  adapted  to  work  of  this  sort,  that  a  voter  can  make 


—  19  — 

no  choice  between  them. x  Besides  this,  the  very  fact  that  the 
office  is  made  important,  makes  it  possible  to  obtain  the  best 
men  in  the  community  as  candidates  ;  because,  under  such 
conditions,  it  is  worth  while  for  any  man  to  be  the  Mayor  of 
a  great  city ;  while,  under  conditions  where  the  Mayor  is  a 
figurehead  only,  no  man  having  a  regard  for  his  own  reputa- 
tion can  afford  to  accept  the  place,  even  could  he  be  elected 
to  it. 

It  is  a  matter  of  record,  I  think,  that  in  those  cities  where 
the  Mayor  has  been  made  a  controlling  po\ver  under  the 
charter,  more  citizens  have  voted  in  the  choice  for  Mayor, 
than  ever  have  voted  before  for  city  officers.  The  fact  that 
the  man  elected  is  so  completely  influential  in  shaping  the 
policy  and  destiny  of  the  city  during  his  term,  more  than 
anything  else  brings  the  citizens  to  the  polls  to  express  their 
wishes  upon  a  matter  so  palpably  important  to  them.  In  my 
own  city  of  Brooklyn,  under  such  conditions,  more  men  have 
voted  for  the  office  of  Mayor,  than  have  voted  for  the  office 
of  Governor,  a  result  never  realized  until  the  Mayor  was 
made  the  practical  head  of  the  city  government.  It  is  clear, 
I  think,  that  the  tide  of  legislation  in  regard  to  cities  is  run- 
ning in  this  direction,  because  it  is  so  clearly  the  teaching  of 
experience,  and  because  it  is  so  closely  in  line  with  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States.  I  expect  to  see  the  current 
sweep  on  until  this  system  prevails  in  all  cities  of  any  mag- 
nitude. 

To  turn  now  to  another  point.  In  New  York  State, 
especially,  our  cities  have  suffered  from  the  tendency  of  the 
Legislature  constantly  to  change  their  charters,  and  to  inter- 
fere in  the  details  of  the  city's  work  in  ways  altogether  un- 
warrantable. The  practice  sprang  up,  I  presume,  from  the 
fear  entertained  in  some  quarters  of  the  consequences  of  en- 
trusting to  the  people  of  New  York  City  the  administration 
of  their  own  affairs.  Unquestionably,  experience  did  dem- 
onstrate the  necessity,  as  I  have  already  said,  of  modifying 
the  powers  of  the  Common  Council  in  that  city  in  many 
particulars,  but  the  pendulum  swung  equally  too  far,  and 


20  

equally  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  city,  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. There  is  no  possibility,  in  my  view,  under  our  Ameri- 
can system  of  government,  of  procuring  good  government  for 
any  city,  by  outside  interference  in  details.  Our  system  is 
all  based  upon  trust  in  the  people,  and  I  believe  the  way  to 
achieve  the  best  results,  is  to  follow  out  that  trust  to  its  logi- 
cal conclusions.  Changes  of  method  whereby  the  will  of  the 
people  can  be  more  efficiently  executed,  or  their  interests  more 
securely  protected,  are  always  in  order  ;  but  methods  which 
simply  substitute  the  will  of  the  State  for  the  will  of  the  locality 
in  local  matters,  are  not  beneficial.  Lest  I  should  be  misun- 
derstood, let  me  illustrate  what  I  mean.  I  conceive  it  to  be 
no  departure  from  the  true  principle  of  Home  Rule  to  limit  the 
debt  which  a  city  can  create.  It  is  a  singular  circumstance, 
that  at  the  moment  it  has  been  made  more  easy  for  a  commu- 
nity to  run  into  debt,  through  their  incorporation  as  a  city, 
at  that  moment,  the  Legislature,  hitherto,  haslet  down  all  the 
bars  restraining  the  use  of  the  public  credit.  The  facilities  for 
debt  making  in  towns  and  villages,  do  not  begin  to  compare 
with  the  opportunities  which  cities  have  enjoyed  for  discount- 
ing the  future,  until  limited  by  constitutional  amendment. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  conceive  it  to  be  a  flagrant  departure 
from  the  idea  of  local  self-government,  and  a  departure  also 
which  never  will  work  to  the  advantage  of  a  city,  for  the 
Legislature  of  the  State  to  order  a  specific  work  to  be  done, 
which  competent  authorities  in  the  city  government  do  not 
think  ought  to  be  done.  To  my  view,  it  is  equally  a  depart- 
ure from  a  proper  theory  of  Home  Rule,  when  unusual  work 
is  to  be  done,  for  the  Legislature  to  designate  the  person  or 
persons  by  whom  it  is  to  be  executed.  All  such  Legislative 
acts  should  lodge  the  power  of  appointment  and  removal  with 
the  Mayor,  precisely  as  though  the  work  to  be  done  were  a 
part  of  the  ordinary  functions  of  one  of  the  city  departments. 
When  the  Legislature  names  a  commission,  it  is  wholly  irre- 
sponsible ;  nobody  but  the  Legislature  itself  can  call  it  to 
account  in  any  particular.  If  a  commission  is  named  by  the 
Mayor,  however,  and  is  removable  by  the  Mayor,  there  is 


21  — 


always  a  power  at  hand  to  call  the  commissioners  to  account. 
I  understand  the  possibilities  of  danger  involved  in  such 
power  ;  but  my  contention  is,  that  they  are  greatly  less  than 
the  possibilities  of  danger  and  harm  involved  in  the  other 
method.  Everything  which  tends  to  strengthen  the  pride  of 
the  people  in  their  city,  is  an  important  element  in  procuring 
good  city  government.  Everything  which  tends  to  lessen 
that  pride  and  to  decrease  the  sense  of  responsibility,  is  a 
blow  at  good  city  government.  The  doing  of  city  work  by 
commissions  appointed  by  the  Legislature,  in  my  judgment, 
is  a  grave  mistake,  for  this  reason  if  for  no  other,  and  I  hope 
to  see  the  day  when  our  people  will  have  confidence  enough 
in  the  ideas  which  underlie  all  our  institutions,  to  be  true  to 
them  in  this  respect.  It  may  be  that  the  path  to  good  gov- 
ernment in  a  given  city  would  lie  through  a  costly  experi- 
ence ;  but  I  verily  believe,  that  at  the  end  of  that  experience, 
would  come  a  prolonged  period  of  really  good  government. 
Under  the  system  of  appealing  from  ourselves  to  the  central 
authority  of  the  State,  there  is  no  hope  for  permanent  good 
results. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  paper,  I  claimed  that  many 
of  the  palpable  grounds  for  dissatisfaction  with  the  con- 
dition of  affairs  in  our  cities,  were  chargeable  to  elements 
of  their  situation  in  no  way  connected  with  our  popular  in- 
stitutions. The  succeeding  discussion,  I  hope,  has  been  suf- 
ficiently convincing  to  show  that  a  perceptible  percentage  of  the 
evils  which  we  have  endured  in  our  American  cities  have  been 
due  to  causes  which  are  remediable,  through  amendments 
to  our  city  charters.  In  so  far  as  our  failures  in  city  gov- 
ernment can  be  traced  to  such  causes,  the  matter  is  not  fatal. 
There  would  be  ground  for  despair,  only,  in  the  event  that 
we  were  forced  to  conclude  the  root  of  the  trouble  was  entire- 
ly beyond  our  reach  under  the  popular  institutions  which  we 
enjoy.  For  myself,  I  do  not  entertain  this  view.  Time,  I 
think,  will  teach  us  how  to  mitigate  even  those  evils  di- 
rectly traceable  to  party  spirit.  In  many  and  very  import- 
ant respects,  the  government  of  our  large  cities,  has  greatly 


22 


improved  within  the  last  ten  or  twenty  years.  I  think 
life  and  property  is  more  secure  in  almost  all  of  them 
than  they  used  to  be.  Certainly,  there  has  been  no  such 
decrease  of  security  as  might  reasonably  have  been  ex- 
pected to  result  from  the  increased  size  of  the  cities.  Less 
than  a  score  of  years  ago,  it  was  impossible  to  have  a 
fair  election  in  New  York  or  in  Brooklyn,  or  perhaps  in 
any  other  large  city.  To-day,  and  for  the  last  decade,  under 
our  system  of  Registry  Laws,  every  election  is  held  with  sub- 
stantial fairness.  The  health  of  our  cities,  unless  I  am  mis- 
taken, does  not  deteriorate,  but  on  the  average  improves. 
So  that  in  the  large  and  fundamental  aspect  of  the  question, 
I  have  a  feeling  that  our  progress,  if  slow,  is  steady  in  the 
direction  of  betterment.  I  do  not  expect  to  see  the  history  of 
the  next  twenty  years  in  the  affairs  of  our  cities  repeat  all 
the  scandals  that  have  marked  the  past  twenty  years.  It  is 
not  strange  that  a  people  conducting  an  experiment,  for  which 
there  is  absolutely  no  precedent,  should  have  to  stumble 
towards  correct  and  successful  methods  through  experiences 
which  may  be  both  costly  and  distressing.  I  see  no  other 
road  towards  improvement,  in  the  coming  time,  but  I  think 
it  certain  that  in  another  decade  we  shall  look  back  on  some 
of  the  scandals  of  the  present,  in  city  government,  with  as 
much  surprise  as  we  now  regard  the  effort  to  control  fires 
by  a  volunteer  fire  department,  which  was  insisted  upon  in 
New  York  until  within  twenty  years.  In  other  words,  I  take 
no  gloomy  view  of  the  situation.  I  see  nothing  in  the  gen- 
eral condition  of  affairs  which  is  absolutely  incurable,  unless 
it  be  the  unwillingness  of  the  people  themselves  to  choose 
their  local  officials  along  divisions  on  local  lines.  I  confess 
that  it  is  here  that  the  problem  appears  to  me  the  most  diffi- 
cult. I  hope  for  good  results  in  this  direction,  however,  from 
the  growth  of  sentiment  in  favor  of  civil  service  reform, 
whereby  patronage  shall  become  less  and  less  powerful  in  the 
determination  of  election  contests  ;  from  legislation  which, 
in  controlling  to  some  extent,  the  cost  and  methods  of  con- 
ducting canvasses,  may  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  mischief 


—  23  — 

wrought  by  the  improper  use  of  money.  I  do  not  expect  to 
live  long  enough  to  see  the  government  of  cities  in  America 
anything  other  than  a  pressing  problem,  but  as  I  stated  at 
the  outset,  it  is  a  problem  everywhere.  During  the  last 
spring,  I  staid  for  four  months  in  the  City  of  London,  and  I 
had  not  been  long  in  the  habit  of  reading  the  newspapers 
there  before  I  became  aware  that  the  administration  of  their 
local  affairs  was  seemingly  as  unsatisfactory  to  the  people  of 
London,  as  the  administration  of  any  of  our  large  cities. 
They  have,  it  must  be  conceded,  better  pavements  and 
cleaner  streets,  but  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  work  of  a 
London  parish,  in  the  parts  of  the  city  already  built  up,  is 
practically  confined  to  care  for  the  current  necessities  of  liv- 
ing from  day  to  day.  They  are  not  engaged  in  the  construction 
of  large  and  costly  improvements,  as  all  of  our  large  cities 
are,  but  all  of  their  attention  is  concentrated  upon  the  effort 
to  provide  adequately  and  economically  for  the  daily  comfort 
of  the  citizen. 

As  our  cities  grow  in  stability  and  provide  themselves,  so 
to  speak,  with  the  necessary  working  plant,  they  approximate 
more  and  more  to  similar  physical  conditions  ;  and,  as  they 
do  so,  it  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  our  pavements  will  im- 
prove and  the  cleaning  of  our  streets  will  be  more  satisfac- 
tory. In  other  words,  as  I  said  at  the  outset,  time  is  a  neces- 
sary factor  in  the  procurement  of  many  of  the  things  we 
most  want.  But  the  progress  of  cities  towards  economical 
and  efficient  administration,  necessarily  must  be  a  matter  of 
growth,  and  all  enduring  growth  is  slow. 

To  sum  up — I  believe,  that  the  ideal  city  charter  should  be 
founded  upon  the  theory  of  separation  of  the  legislative  and 
executive  functions  ;  that  the  Board  of  Aldermen  should  have 
no  more  power  of  interference  with  the  Executive  than  the 
House  of  Representatives  has  ;  that  the  Mayor  should  have  the 
power  of  appointment  and  removal  of  executive  officers  during 
the  time  for  which  he  is  responsible  for  the  government  of  the 
city ;  that  the  extent  to  which  cities  may  incur  debt, 
should  be  fixed  absolutely  by  constitutional  limitation  ;  that 


24 

the  Legislature  should  be  deprived  of  the  power  of  passing 
mandatory  bills,  compelling  cities  to  undertake  public  works  ; 
and  that  all  public  work  undertaken  in  conformity  with 
special  authority  from  the  Legislature,  if  executed  by  special 
commission,  should  be  under  the  charge  of  a  commission 
appointed  by  the  Mayor,  the  members  of  which  should  be 
removable  by  him  at  any  time.  Given  such  a  charter  as 
this,  with  such  constitutional  protection  from  debt  making  on 
the  one  hand  and  from  compulsory  expenditure  on  the  other, 
I  think  a  city  should  be  permitted  to  work  out  its  own  salva- 
tion, and  to  suffer,  if  need  be,  the  consequences  of  poor  gov- 
ernment, if  that  is  the  only  government  which  the  virtue  or 
intelligence  of  its  citizens  will  procure.  Individuals  in  this 
world  are  compelled  to  learn  by  experience,  and  communities 
should  be  subject  to  the  same  law.  A  city  does  not  deserve 
any  better  government  than  its  own  people  will  get  for  it, 
and  when  a  chance  has  been  given  to  them,  under  a  form  of 
charter,  the  best  that  experience  can  dictate,  I  believe  they 
can  be  trusted  to  produce  better  results  for  themselves,  than 
can  be  produced  for  them  by  the  most  benevolent  outside 
power. 


OF  THE 

(  UNIVERSITY  ) 


14  DAY  USE 

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